How We Spend Our Days Is How We Spend Our Lives

Time flies, and time flies faster and faster as we age. It's essential to make our time count in ways that matter to us, and if it has not already, this process must start now!

Organizing our life is essential to ensure that the sum of the days we live in the here and now ends up amounting to a life that we will actually be happy to have lived decades down the line. We do not want to wake up at 80 and realize that we spent our whole life either asleep or in emergency mode, always hoping for circumstances to change to accomplish what matters to us and feel fulfilled.

A lot of people value their relationships with family and friends. Even if you are not very relational, do you know that the most common regret mentioned in hospice care is not having invested enough time in relationships? Living the life that we want to live and having enough time and energy to nurture satisfying relationships require organization, because if we value our relationships and want them to last, we'll need to make our days reflect these values by dedicating focused time to our relationships on a daily basis.

And the most important relationship to nurture is with our own self.

Are you actively creating time in your day-to-day life to take care of yourself and nurture your relationship with the precious people in your life? Does it actually show up in your calendar, alongside all your other commitments?

Limiting our organization to simply filling up a calendar with appointments and deadlines imposed by others is unfortunately likely to lead to one of two undesirable outcomes:

• Not-too-busy people might end up having plenty of time for self-care and relationships, but they might find themselves spending their abundant free time with daydreaming and random activities that more often than not do not align with how they actually would like to live their life.

• Busy people are at risk of spending their days running from one commitment to the next, like a firefighter trying to put off as many fires as possible in as little time as possible. Some activities may align with long-term intentions, but self-care and relationships are likely to be neglected.

Over the years, as I went from not-too-busy to very engaged in my life, I created a system to organize my time purposefully in order to live - on a daily basis - a life aligned with my life purpose, but also well balanced and grounded in adequate self-care.

This process requires the willingness to commit to our own self.

In my system, there are 5 levels of organization:

1. Life

What would make my life a great life? What is my purpose or mission statement for my life? What principles do I want to ground my life on?

Answering these questions is crucial to develop a crystal clear sense of direction on how we are going to live our life. Although the "what" is not always clear - or under our control - the "how" can certainly be. Look at the Japanese concept of Ikigai for inspiration.

Tip: These questions could be answered in a journal entry or by creating a piece of art (think poetry, collage, calligraphy, photography, etc).

2. Year

What do I want to accomplish this year? Do my career, finances, household, relationships, development or continued education need attention? What action step(s) can I take next year to make progress on the long-term goals aligned with my life purpose?

One year is one cycle of human life, and therefore it's the perfect level to start reflecting on the organization of our life. At the end of each year, make a list of goals that are realistic to accomplish in the next twelve months and create a flexible schedule for when each goal will be addressed and worked on. If you need help to decide what areas(s) of your life need focus, consider using the wheel of life.

Tip: A simple three-column Excel spreadsheet or Word document can suffice for this level of organization. The list of goals can go in the first column, their projected deadline (month or even simply season) in the second column, and a status update in the third column.

3. Month

How does the next month look like? What are the non-negotiable commitments and obligations to take care of? Any event(s) to plan for? When is there some free time to work on yearly goals that have been scheduled for this month? What kind of support will I need this month?

It's at the level of the month that we can start allocating our time deliberately and purposefully. In a month, there are ongoing commitments, recurring obligations, and special events to schedule, but we must also allocate time for what matters to us in the long-term.

At the end of each month, go over the next month's commitments and schedule time slots to work on your goals for the year. If needed, cancel less important activities to make time to work on your long-term goals that align with the vision you have for your life. And yes, if a yearly goal of yours is to have more rest and relaxation you’re indeed going to schedule large blocks of rest in your monthly schedule! It’s not going to happen if you do not reserve time for it and commit yourself to it.

Tip: A calendar that can be shared between devices and between family members can be really useful to organize at the level of the month. However the most important is finding the method that truly works for you, so try out a few things until you find what is effective for you.

4. Week

How much time will I work this week? How will I take care of myself? How much time will I devote to my relationships? What do I have to do to keep my household run smoothly? How much time will I invest for my development and education? When will I work on my yearly goals?

If it can be difficult to create balance on a day-to-day basis, it's essential to do it at the week level. Pick a day each week to carefully plan the following week. If you are comfortable with structure or need it to fight off a tendency to get distracted, then hourly scheduling might work well for you. If not, simply writing down what needs to be accomplished for each day of the week with no set time could work better if your activities require more time flexibility, for so long as you are realistic with the number of things you put on your list for each day of the week.

Tip: Creating a template for your typical week(s) is extremely helpful to ensure a reasonable distribution of the 168 hours of the week between self-care, work, relationships, parenting, household management, development and education, commuting, and all the other buffers that must be scheduled between activities to keep things flowing realistically and effectively. This method ensures that we schedule the things that are usually not scheduled, such as self-care activities (sleep, meal prep and meal times, relaxing) and focused time with our loved ones.

5. Day

What do you most value in your life? What are the principles you decided to ground your life on? How can you embody and express them on a daily basis? How are you going to take good care of yourself today while also working on your other projects?

Each day can be lived as a metaphor for a whole life. If we value hard work, we have to take concrete steps to offer our skills to the world on a daily basis. If we greatly care about our spouse and children, we have to give them a daily dose of our full attention and concrete expression of our love. If what we care about is helping others, we have to express these values in some ways, day after day. We must devote daily time slots to our most valued intentions!

This being said, remember that you can’t do everything every day. If you are consistently overwhelmed, you have to learn to lower your ambitions, schedule less things or allocate more time for each activity. Go back and forth between daily and weekly scheduling to make sure that if balance is not reached every day, it’s at the very least reached every week.

Tip: If you resist organization, being creative with the way you approach your daily planning could help you tremendously. For some, a fancy app will be supportive. For others, it's a diary with inspiring quotes that will help create a bit of structure without being too rigid. For you, it might be something else. Try out various methods and choose whatever works for you, but keep in mind that the most effective might be the most old-fashioned one. Paper and pencil, anyone?

In summary, purposeful organization is necessary to live the life you are meant to live, and crucial to have enough time and energy to take care of what you actually deeply value. Being overly organized and structured can certainly stifle creativity and lead to burn out. On the other hand, going too much with the flow can lead to wasting time, living a life that lacks purpose, and neglecting important areas of life such as our self-care and cherished relationships.

May you live the life that you are meant to live!

Is Your Mindfulness Practice Preventing You From Processing Your Feelings Fully?

Originally, engaging in a mindfulness practice was done under the guidance of a teacher. As the practice has become popular, it’s nowadays very common to start on our own, maybe after a one-time instruction or under the “guidance” of a meditation app.

The positive of being able to practice independently is that more people are able to try out and hopefully adopt a regular mindfulness or meditation practice; the negative of practicing without guidance is that a lot of us don’t actually really know what to do, beside “focusing on the breath, observing thoughts and emotions that arise, and letting them go.”

Although I got some basic instructions when I first started my mindfulness practice over a decade ago - at yoga classes and later in a Buddhist monastery, I never practiced under the one-to-one ongoing guidance of a meditation teacher. Years later, I came to the conclusion that although my independent practice had been life-changing – and turned me into a fervent advocate – it had also led to imbalances in the processing of my emotions.

When practiced with guidance, and therefore with the possibility of receiving feedback, I believe that mindfulness is the holistic practice that it’s supposed to be. However when we practice with no regular guidance - like I have - we are at risk of falling in the trap of our blind spots, or if we are aware of them, of overcompensating too much in the other direction.

One over-compensation that can happen – and that happened to me – is to use our newfound clarity and acceptance to bypass the completion of our emotional experiences.

Example:

• As we’re sitting in our practice, we notice anxiety, either already present in the background or arising as we engage in our practice.

• We notice the anxiety, the thoughts and the somatic experience going with it.

• We accept it, maybe even validate it.

• And then we let it go and return to our breath.

• Then we notice something else arising.

• We go through the same process.

• Finally, we end our practice and go back to our regular business.

And now, what’s happening to the anxiety?

It’s possible that simply noticing it, validating it and letting it go was good enough for that specific emotional experience. However it’s also very likely that more needs to be done after our practice, such as exploring the underlying trigger underneath our experience of anxiety, the story we were telling our self as we felt the anxiety rising, and most importantly the somatic experience going with it. As much as the purpose of mindfulness is to observe what is arising and let it go in the moment, a lot of our thoughts and emotions will need to be revisited and explored after the practice so that we can fully complete them and let them go for good.

Completion requires using our mental, emotional and somatic intelligences to explore, process and integrate what has happened, and this is going to take more time and effort than simply noticing and letting go.

When we use our newfound awareness to let our feelings go too fast, our mind artificially speeds up our emotional processing. We might have great self-awareness and self-acceptance but our body might not have released all the energetic build-up of our fresh emotions, and our mind might not have made sense yet of our emotional experience.

Every feeling or emotion arises with an energetic charge that gets stored in our tissues over time if we don’t release it. Furthermore there might be some decision-making that needs to be done in response to some emotional experiences.

Our mindfulness practice’s roles are to develop our inner observer, hone our capacity for focusing our attention at will and become skillful at shifting from reactivity to response. We must pair this powerful practice with an equally powerful practice of revisiting and processing all the feelings that mindfulness allows us to notice and observe in the moment.

How The Enneagram Brings Us Back To Our True Self

What’s fantastic about the Enneagram is its role in guiding us back to our true nature, and therefore the talents that are hardwired into our being. Yes, each one of us has a unique set of talents!

It’s not only our birthright to enjoy these talents but also our responsibility to offer them to the world.

The Enneagram describes the nine psycho-spiritual structures that we can have. Although each one of us shows up with a little bit of each type, we specialize in one territory – our specific Enneagram type - and that’s what becomes our focus of attention, consciously or not. As we grow up - and then become stressed adults - we lose contact with our true nature and we start unconsciously manufacturing an imitation of it that can lead to all kinds of troubles, from anxiety and depression to relationship issues, or “just” a nagging sense of unfulfilled potential or lack of direction.

Here is a quick description of each Enneagram type – see if you can recognize your self and some of your loved ones as you read:

• When we are a Type One, also called the Idealist, we have an intuitive sense of what’s good and right about our self, others and the world. We conduct our self with integrity and we inspire others to do the same. When we’re stressed and less present, we tend to become critical and sometimes controlling. We must remind our self that our standards are just ours, and that multiple sets of standards can harmoniously coexist.

• When we are a Type Two, also called the Helper, we know deep down that we are love. We bring our selflessness and generosity into the world and teach others that we don’t have to deserve love, we’re all perfectly lovable just as we are. When we lose presence, we start unconsciously believing that we are excluded from this natural flow and that we must become useful and helpful in order to earn love from others. We become compulsive in our attempts to help and we can at times be manipulative. We must remind our self that we are lovable no matter what we do, or don’t do.

• When we are a Type Three, also called the Achiever, we have a knack for sensing what has value and the potential for success, in our self, others and the world around us. We make things happen and can literally turn lead into gold. We’re also great encouragers and leaders. When stressed, we unconsciously assume that we must be successful in order to earn approval and be perceived as worthwhile. This can lead to working too hard, maybe on things we don’t really care about, and to burnout and relationship issues. We must remind our self that our worth and brilliance is inherent and not based on our accomplishments.

• When we are a Type Four, also called the Individualist, we have the ability to feel deeply and to be present to the whole range of emotions in our self and with others. We are sensitive, empathic, comfortable with our vulnerable side, and have a deep connection with beauty and esthetics. When stressed and less present, we begin to identify to our feelings and moods and take our self and relationships onto a rollercoaster of emotions and oftentimes unnecessary drama. We must remind our self that our feelings are valuable pieces of information in the moment but never tell us the whole truth about our identity or what’s happening around us.

• When we are a Type Five, also called the Investigator, we excel at looking beyond what is obvious to find deeper truth about reality. We love learning and acquiring knowledge, and we think and communicate with precision. We are comfortable with solitude and allow others to just be. When we are under stress, we tend to feel overwhelmed by the world and we isolate from others in order to retreat into our own internal world. We must remind our self that we can master life out there in the world, and stay engaged with others in a sustainable way.

• When we are a Type Six, also called the Loyal Skeptic, we enjoy a fine-tuned inner guidance that allows us to know and do exactly what needs to be done. Our great intuition is able to sense what is true and safe in the world. When we’re stressed and not present, we lose touch with this inner guidance and look outside our self for safety. We can start having an uncomfortable relationship with authority figures and not knowing who and what to trust in general. We must remind our self that we have a stable inner space within our self that is the source of our safety and wisdom at all times and therefore do not have to submit our own authority to others.

• When we are a Type Seven, also called the Enthusiast, we have an extraordinary ability to enjoy the moment, extracting all the juice, the joy and the freedom of what is happening right now. We’re fun, we have plenty of ideas and we tend to invite others into our optimistic and joyful way of experiencing life. When we’re not present, we start resisting all the difficult experiences of life, from simple boredom to heartbreaks. We distract our self by unconsciously and compulsively planning our next moves or next ideas to not have to be in touch with any pain at all. We must remind our self that we’re strong and capable of being with all experiences - good, bad and ugly - and that this ability is actually the true source of our joy and freedom.

• When we are a Type Eight, also called the Challenger, we are deeply in touch with our own power, we’re confident and strong and able to challenge what we don’t believe in. We can also acutely sense energies and power dynamics around our self. When we’re stressed and less present, we resist our own vulnerability and intimacy, we exert more energy than the situation calls for, and we can become difficult, pushy and sometimes rebellious. We must remind our self that in our emotions lies real strength, and that intimacy is not threatening but a source of great fulfillment.

• When we are a Type Nine, also called the Peacemaker, we deeply connect with the thread that connects and unites us all. We intuitively know that we are one. We can see and accept all points of view and we excel at maintaining peace and harmony and bringing people together. When we’re stressed, we start feeling threatened by conflicts and we become compulsively accommodating to others to avoid disharmony. We must remind our self that addressing conflicts often leads to greater connection through deeper understanding and that our personal desires and needs matter. Contentment comes from participating fully in the world by including our self in the flow of life.

And that’s the Nine Types in a nutshell! For some, it’s very easy to land on our type right away. For others it takes a longer investigation because a lot of other factors can blend into our psycho-spiritual structure and these can make our Enneagram type less obvious. Such factors include Ennagram wings and subtypes, and also cultural and familial trends.

Tests and plenty more information are available online. Trustworthy sources include The Enneagram Institute and The Narrative Enneagram. Please explore! And be in touch if you’d like to book a Self-Discovery session with me, where we’ll figure your type out and discuss your next steps based on what you want to accomplish. Nothing beats a custom road map to get to precisely where we want to go!

Good Communication = Good Relationships

What relationships - both professional and personal - most desperately need is skilled communication. Communicating well together is an essential skill; without it there is no healthy relationships.

What makes communicating with another person not only effective but satisfying is taking into account the underlying emotional dimension of what is being shared. Good communication is not just about facts, and it’s definitely not just about “getting it out”.

Good communication builds understanding and trust, and trust is the foundation of good communication. It’s the virtuous cycle. The opposite is also true. Bad communication leads to disconnection in the relationship, and disconnection negatively affects communication. It’s the vicious cycle.

Developing the following competencies leads to effective and fulfilling communication with others:

1. Exploring feelings

A lot of what we communicate is about reacting/responding from our feelings. It’s difficult to communicate well if we don’t know what we are feeling because it means that we're not aware of our underlying motivation. Also, if we’re not able to be in touch with our own feelings, it’s going to be impossible to take into account someone else’s feelings. And yes, for professional conversations as well!

2. Developing mindfulness

Because the most challenging conversations involve difficult emotions such as anger, sadness, shame and fear, developing our mindfulness allows us to be present to these difficult emotions while remaining engaged with the other person. Mindfulness practice leads to the ability to pause and choose how to respond, rather than lashing out and/or withdrawing from the conversation.

3. Listening deeply

Skillful communication starts with listening to the other person’s point of view. It’s about refraining from assumptions and being curious while putting our own needs on the backburner until we understand the other person better.

4. Talking with compassion

Sometimes we have to say something that might activate negative feelings for the other person. In such cases, the way we talk verbally and non-verbally deeply affects trust in the relationship. Learning how to speak up in a way that is timely, authentic and compassionate is essential to build trust and understanding with the other person.

5. Being patient

Skillful communication requires patience. First off, it takes time to learn how to communicate well and our skills might go through ups and down depending on what we go through at any given time. Secondly, while some conversations will be completed in one session, the most difficult ones will need multiple sit-downs and will most likely require trying different ways to express what we want to communicate to the other person. Patience is key to communication success.

Is It True, Kind And Necessary?

A lot of the things I read goes in one ear and out the other. And then sometimes, I read something that triggers such a powerful ah ah moment that it sticks with me forever.

One of these things is the “test” I’m about to share with you that I read in a yoga magazine over a decade ago.

The test is short. When you want to speak, ask yourself: “Is what I’m about to say true, kind and necessary?”.

There is so much in this question, isnt’it?

• Pausing. In order to even do this test, we must have developed enough mindfulness to be able to sense the desire of speaking arising, choose to pause, and shift from reactivity to response.

• Honesty. It’s easy to make excuses for BS when we are in reactive mode. We call it “small lie” or “white lie”. It’s still BS. “Is what I’m about to say true?”

• Gentleness. When we react instead of respond, we are more likely to use a cold tone or lash out, and hurt feelings in the process. “Is what I’m about to say kind?”

• Usefulness. A lot of what we talk about is pretty useless. There would be much more silence and much more purposeful, useful speech if we could refrain from unnecessary chatter. “Is what I’m about to say necessary?”

Now, how do we reconcile conflicting priorities? If for a lot of our communication needs we can indeed choose to speak words that fulfill the three criteria of truth, kindness and necessity, there are more complex scenarios when one of these three criteria will need to be sacrificed for the sake of the two others.

• When to sacrifice necessity? A lot of “unnecessary” chatter takes place for the sake of connection. From small talk at the start of a new relationship to random conversations just for fun, we could argue that these are unnecessary. A lot of them are but many more have a deeper purpose of bonding and pleasure. Although technically unnecessary, they are still very important for so long as they are honest and kind.

• When to sacrifice kindness? This one is tough. We never have to sacrifice respect, and we never have to be mean. But there are plenty of situations where taking care of our self and our loved ones might require a level of firmness and bluntness that - although not mean - is also not kind. When something true and necessary must be expressed in a way that might not be actively kind, we must make sure to do so with the full awareness that there is another person on the receiving end of our speech that deserves our respect.

• When to sacrifice truth? Would there be any reasons to sacrifice honesty for the sake of necessity and kindness? Not many for sure. Let’s consider the generous people who hid Jews in Germany during the holocaust and who lied to nazi soldiers asking them if they had seen any Jewish person. Those very essential lies, made out of necessity and kindness, saved precious lives. There are other examples when not telling the truth is the necessary and compassionate thing to do, but it’s rare. It’s crucial to proceed with caution with that one because our egos excel at coming up with convoluted excuses to justify lying for the sake of being “nice”. Not good enough.

Now, how about using this test in our written communication as well? Instant messaging apps are super useful but they also have created more opportunities for mindless chatter. How about practising pausing before writing and asking our self the same question: “Is what I’m about to write true, kind and necessary?”

Mindful communication = healthier relationships.

Turning Regrets Into Opportunities

Do you have regrets?

I do.

Most of them are from my late teens and early twenties, and most of them concern relationships. I was a late bloomer in several aspects, especially emotionally. Unfortunately the self-absorption and emotional immaturity of my early adulthood led me to mishandle most of my relationships - with family, friends and boyfriends.

I definitely regret these mishaps because they have led people to feel hurt.

At 40, I still make mistakes but now I can usually recognize them earlier and therefore self-correct pretty quickly.

But what to do with missed opportunities and old mistakes?

We can turn our regrets into development opportunities.

Step 1:

The first step is to identify what we regret, take responsibility, accept that we have missed some opportunities or made mistakes, and seek understanding of what went wrong. Understanding helps a lot to accept regrets and mistakes and it can serve as a foundation to the difficult process of forgiving our self. It's a really crucial part of learning from mistakes, both small and big.

Step 2:

Because it’s never too late to start doing things in a more mature way, we need to identify what must be learned and develop a strategy to make progress. It might be useful to seek the support of a professional or of a group, or it can be a self-directed project. A daily practice is required to sustain and nourish the new actions we want to take.

Step 3:

Depending on what happened in the past and whether our regrets are about mistakes we made, we might want to apologize to the people we have hurt. Sometimes it's appropriate, sometimes it's not; this must be decided based on what's best for the other person, not for our own self. When it's best to not re-involve the person or the old feelings, we can write a letter that we don't send, or more meaningfully, we can commit to doing things differently with the people who are in our life today.

Every regret, missed opportunity or mistake is a rich source of learning and growth if we are up to the challenge. We grow more from mistakes than from success. Rather than brewing in old stories and feelings, we can pause, reflect, make an intention, and start taking new actions, based on a deeper understanding of ourselves, others and life itself.

The Difference Between Authenticity And Reactivity

One reason why we might fear being authentic is that we confuse being reactive with being authentic.

And since we might fear the impact of our reactions on others… we fear authenticity itself.

The thing is, being reactive and being authentic are not the same thing.

Reactivity is letting whatever arising emotion to be expressed in our most instinctual pattern. For example, it might mean allowing a surge of anger to explode if we’re instinctually driven to do so, or on the contrary, stuffing it inside if that’s what our reactive pattern is conditioned to do.

Authenticity, on the other hand, is feeling the surge of anger just as it starts arising, skillfully coming back to our center as we evaluate with curiosity and acceptance what is triggering our emotional reaction and what the circumstances around us are, and making a careful assessment on how to express our anger.

In reactivity, we are unconsciously driven by our emotional center and we unconsciously react from our instinctual center. Basically, we only use two intelligence centers and in a non-integrated way.

No wonder we fear our own reactivity!

When we choose authenticity, we integrate our four intelligence centers - Heart (emotions), Mind (thoughts), Body (gut instincts) and Spirit (higher purpose) – by somatically coming back to our center and asking ourselves the following questions:

• Is it the right time and place to express my emotions? Alternatively, would asking the person/people to step aside with me or postponing until later be wiser?

• How is it most effective to express my feelings? Is letting it all out the most adequate expression in this specific situation? If not, would translating these feelings into self-aware and eloquent language less damaging to the relationship and more useful to move forward?

• What is the context surrounding my emotional experience? How could everyone be best served, with both truth and compassion?

An authentic response integrates the intelligence and the truth of our Body, Mind, Heart and Spirit. And because it’s not just about ourselves, when we are truly authentic we also consider the unique context in which we are emoting, our relationships with others and the impact we would like to have in the world.

Reactivity is just emotional vomiting. It sure is real but it’s only real from a limited part of ourselves, a part that might actually be triggered in reaction to something that occurred a long, long time ago.

Authenticity is integrating our whole truth into our response to what is happening with a specific person, in the present moment. It is truth, compassion and purpose weaved together harmoniously.

Pain Is Unavoidable. Suffering Is Optional.

Difficult and painful situations, problems and questions are part of human life. However, we human beings excel at turning pain into suffering by getting attached to how things “should be” or “should not be”. Our minds are constantly scanning our inner and outer world for “likes” and “dislikes” and “rights” and “wrongs”.

From one experience of pain, our mind creates a story leading to suffering.

Example:

Pain: proposing an idea at a work meeting and being told by a coworker in front of everyone that the idea is completely dumb and that it does not bring anything valuable to the table. The pain that arises could be a transient feeling of anger or shame.

Suffering: turning this experience into a story of worthlessness (being stupid, never being able to contribute anything valuable), or into a story of judgment (how the coworker is a terrible person who is always mean to everyone and who should get fired).

An experience of pain is supposed to be relatively short-lived (unless we're talking about more tragic losses of course) because it matches the lifetime of a difficult feeling - the wave of arising, peaking and subsiding of the emotion. When we resist the experience of pain by rejecting it or by getting attached to it, we turn it into suffering which lasts much longer and feels more painful. Such stories can literally last a lifetime if we don't notice them and work at interrupting them.

The kind of stories we tell ourselves and the way we react against things not going the way we want to are incredibly well described by the Enneagram. There actually are nine very well characterized patterns of attachment, rejection and defense.

Each of us uses one of these nine ways to turn pain into suffering.

The Enneagram is a fantastic tool that helps us diagnose and understand the unique unconscious pattern we do over and over - often without even realizing it - for the purpose of avoiding pain but that prevents us from living freshly, freely and authentically. There is nothing that creates more suffering than living inside the script of stories that have little in common with reality.

An accurate Enneagram diagnostic jumpstarts our journey to freedom because it acts as a of beam of bright light revealing aspects of our personality that would remain hidden or otherwise take decades to unearth through running into the same roadblocks again and again. Once equipped with a better understanding of the stories we are *not*, we can use the medicine of presence to free ourselves little by little from the unconscious patterns leading to our unnecessary difficulties, resistance and ultimately suffering.

It's a journey towards freedom.

The Enneagram has guided my inner work for over twelve years, it has allowed me to develop healthy relationships thanks to understanding myself and others better, and it’s become the most incredible tool I use in my coaching practice to support my clients.

I just started the journey towards becoming certified as an Enneagram Teacher. I'm feeling deeply grateful to be learning under the guidance of the wise mentors of The Narrative Enneagram with a tribe of people as passionate as I am about human development.

Be in touch if you'd like to discover how using the Enneagram can transform your life!

Turning Your Inner Critic Into An Ally

Got a voice in your head?

A nagging, critical, belittling voice?

Or maybe it's a sensation of tension, at times crushing a part of your body?

This part of your psyche that criticizes us and saps our energy is called the superego, the judge within, or the inner critic.

Left to its own device, the inner critic is one of the biggest obstacles to joy, fulfillment and success because a superego on automatic pilot triggers a lot of unnecessary fear and shame. It's deeply disempowering.

The inner critic is a structure present in everyone's psyche and it's there to stay. No one is immune to it, although some people have a more intense inner critic than others.

Ironically, the inner critic's original purpose is to protect us. It indeed has good intentions! It wants to prevent us from making mistakes so that we do not feel ashamed, it wants to stick to familiar experiences so that we do not feel afraid, and it wants us to behave in specific ways so that we are respected and liked by others.

The inner critic's negative impact comes not from its intention, but from its way of fulfilling its intention. The inner critic was patterned into our nervous system by our genetics, life in the womb, caregivers, family and culture of origin and experiences during our early development, when we were incapable of making wise decisions on our own. At that time, it made sense to have a primitive system on automatic pilot to prevent us from hurting ourselves when we were exposed to physically or emotionally dangerous scenarios.

Over time, as we develop into autonomous adults, the primitive inner critic’s shaming and fear-inducing automatic reactions become misguided and/or overkill. In the name of “protection”, the inner judge prevents our adult selves from fulfillment and self-realization by keeping us small and powerless. It does not feel good, but we don't know what to do when we are attacked by a part of our own mind.

So what to do?

SInce the superego is a natural part of ourselves and not going anywhere, the best way to deal with the inner critic is to first accept its existence and seek to understand it better. Rather than trying to shut the voice up by yelling back at it or by numbing ourselves from it by engaging in various unhealthy behaviors, it's more effective to be curious about that part of our psyche, start a dialogue with it and discover if we can team up and develop a healthy collaboration with it.

After all, even if it does not feel like it when we are under a vicious attack, at its roots the inner critic is on our side, so it will cooperate better if it is fully acknowledged and accepted. Compassion always work better than silencing or retaliation.

Eventually, our inner work leads to upgrading our primitive inner critic to the role of a wise ally able to fulfill a more sophisticated function than nagging, criticizing or crushing. Disempowerment turns into a reclaiming of our personal power.

Got Boundaries?

Boundaries allow us to have a healthy relationship:

• With ourselves
• With others

What are boundaries?

Boundaries are physical and non-physical limits that individualize our being. Our physical boundaries define what is “me” and what we allow others to do to us physically. Our other boundaries (emotional, spiritual, etc.) define our inner world and how we allow others to treat us.

The cells of a large organism need individuality in order to fulfill their specific cellular functions but they also need individuality to cooperate well with all the other cells of the organism. No communication and cooperation between specialized cells is possible without… individualized cells.

Similarly, all human beings need individuality to manifest their special talents and life purpose and to collaborate well with all other human beings, both in their personal and professional lives.

Boundaries are semi-permeable limits

Healthy boundaries in human beings are like cell membranes: the semi-permeable membrane of a cell allows the carefully monitored passage of molecules in and out of the cell, as well as the exchange of molecules between cells.

Boundaries must not be confused with defenses. Boundaries allow us to welcome the healthy in while leaving the unhealthy out. Defenses leave everything out, the healthy and the unhealthy.

How boundaries are created

Ideally, we learn to set up boundaries by mirroring our caregivers. When our parents and other caregivers have healthy boundaries with us as well as others, we naturally and unconsciously set up healthy boundaries.

Ideally, we are well nurtured in childhood – physically and emotionally - and do not experience any adverse circumstances negatively affecting our young and still maturing boundaries.

Ideally, the social environment around us also support and respect our boundaries.

Well, who has an “ideal” childhood? It’s of course impossible to go through childhood – even a pretty good one – without facing some non-ideal scenarios. Each child goes through the process of separation from the caregiver, and most children will experience some form of small or more serious trauma that will affect their sense of self and therefore their boundaries.

Boundary violations jeopardize relationships

I realized that most if not all of the issues I have faced in my relationships have been boundary issues, either when I have allowed someone to violate my boundaries without reclaiming my power afterwards or – gasp! - when I have violated someone’s boundaries without realizing it and/or without attempting to repair my mistake afterwards.

Unrepaired boundary violations affect trust and respect and there can’t be happy and healthy relationships without 100% trust and respect.

It’s ok to make mistakes… if we strive to correct them

Creating, enforcing, and respecting boundaries is not perfect science. We’re going to make occasional mistakes and the path to healthier relationships is learning to recognize these errors, correct them and do better over time.

The key to improve our inner work around boundaries is healing our past traumas - both serious traumas and small traumas. It's impossible to have healthy boundaries when we still actively suffer from trauma because trauma affects our sense of self and our sense of wholeness. It's hard to have a good sense of our own boundaries when we don't have a clear and healthy sense of our own self.

Boundaries and communication

Communication is the tool that allows us to create and enforce our boundaries with others; it’s also the tool that allows us to make amends and correct mistakes when we are the one who failed to respect someone’s boundary.

When we have healed from our own boundary issues, we can communicate more clearly how we want to be treated. We also become more sensitive to others' boundary messages, both verbal and non verbal.

“Good fences make good neighbors”

“Good boundaries make good relationships”

The Art of Speaking

In a conversation, the most important element is being willing and able to listen deeply to the other person. Listening helps us understand the other’s perspective and allows us to resist the temptation of making assumptions. Listening gives us a chance to be of service with our words, when the time to speak up is ripe.

Artful speaking is indeed an act of service.

Good questions to ask ourselves when we want to speak up are:

• Am I about to speak from reactivity or from presence?
• What would my words bring to the table in this specific moment?
• Am I about to speak words that are necessary, true and compassionate?

Just like good listening, good speaking comes with the cultivation of presence. When we are present, we are more skillful at speaking when it’s useful and we are better able to have difficult conversations, when a sensitive equilibrium of truth and compassion must be found.

With instant messaging and social media replacing progressively more real-life conversations, we have much less opportunities to hone our listening and speaking skills. However these crucial “people skills” are crucial to personal and professional success and fulfillment.

When leaders don’t listen or speak well, they fail to inspire their teams and employees to greatness.

When intimate partners or friends don’t listen or speak well, they fail to nurture their intellectual and emotional connection.

The 21st century requires of us to develop ourselves into the great communicators that we are meant to be.

The Art of Listening

We all know excellent listeners. They are our family members, friends and coworkers whose gentle and thoughtful presence make it easy for us to open up and share everything, including what triggers our feelings of vulnerability.

What these wonderful people in our life do naturally - being present, being open, being non-judgmental, being allowing, being patient, is something that everyone can learn to do. Or, rather than "learning", simply starting by observing what prevents us from truly listening.

When we listen to respond (or react) rather than to deeply understand another human being, it's usually because one of these aspects of our personality gets in the way of our natural presence:

• Distraction: instead of being fully engaged in the present moment, we're living the thoughts and emotions of what we experienced in the past - or we're already anticipating what might come next.
• Opinion: instead of being open and waiting for more information to arise, we're already forming an opinion and unconsciously getting attached to it.
• Assessment: we're filtering what we hear as right/wrong, like/don't like, etc. rather than letting what we hear to simply be.
• Intrusion: out of genuine desire to help and/or also sometimes out of pride, we're jumping in and giving advice - even when it's not asked for or when the timing is off.
• Impatience: we're taking control of the pace of the conversation by rushing the person talking to us, by interrupting, fidgeting or giving our input too soon.

At the root of all of these is our inability to be present; to be completely, fully engaged in the present moment.

Good listeners are usually more skilled at simply being with another person, without any agenda on how things should be and go.

When we make time and allow ourselves to plunge deeply into the present moment, we naturally become better at listening because all the other qualities already present in our being can emerge and blossom: openness, non-judgement, allowing, patience.

There is no sweeter gift than offering good listening in our personal relationships, and there is no more effective way to build mutually satisfying professional relationships than taking time to listen and understand well the person with whom we are trying to collaborate.

Exploring The Enneagram Instinctual Subtypes

While the core of the Enneagram is the detailed description of the nine basic types, the system adds a bit more nuance (and complexity!) by taking the three human survival instincts (also called subtypes) into consideration.

The three instinctual subtypes are very old survival strategies patterned into our nervous system to survive in the world.

• Self-preservation: it’s the drive to take care of one's personal needs for shelter, food, security, etc.
• One-on-one (also unfortunately called "sexual"): it’s the drive to form one-on-one relationships; friendships and intimate relationships.
• Social: it’s the drive to develop a sense of belonging within a larger group, tribe or community.

Just like for our basic Enneagram type, as individuals we tend to unconsciously favor one of these strategies for survival, at the detriment of the two remaining ones.

Because there are three instincts, we can find six different stackings of preference, where the first instinct is our “favorite one” - the one we over-use, the second instinct is the one we use “just right”, and the third instinct is the one that is under-developed and that we therefore "ignore" or under-use.

Here are the six possible stackings that we can have:

• self-preserving / one-on-one / social
• self-preserving / social / one-on-one
• one-on-one / self-preserving / social
• one-on-one / social / self-preserving
• social / self-preserving / one-on-one
• social / one-on-one / self-preserving

These patterns of survival strategies exert enormous influence on our behavior and on the way we engage with others, in personal relationships as well as professional ones.

For example, because self-preserving individuals focus on taking care of their owns needs, they prioritize their comfort and their own way of doing things, and they unconsciously expect the same from others. They bring independence and self-sufficiency to the table.

On the other hand, one-on-one people's survival strategy favors alliances between two people, an "us against the world" kind of mindset. They unconsciously seek others to form one-on-one relationships with them, for both productivity and intimacy. They bring intensity and intimacy to the table.

Finally, social people's focus is on being part of tribes and communities. They enjoy being part of larger groups and working together towards a common goal. They bring a sense of unity and cooperation to the table.

In terms of personal development, each instinct is of course good and useful. However, because of the unconscious drive to over-use our preferred survival strategy, we are at risk of missing the mark in our relationships and decision-making process because of our "addiction" to a certain instinct. The second/middle instinct in our stacking is actually the healthiest and most balanced, which makes it a good one to rely on more often. Finally, because we tend to ignore our least developed instinct, it becomes a blind spot and gets in the way of our development and relationships.

In professional relationships, teams made of a variety of people are the most effective because they naturally leverage the power of each instinct. Teams benefit from all types of people: self preserving, one-on-one and social. However, it can be difficult for people operating from very different instinctual drives to understand one another and work in harmony together. For example, a self-preserving individual might be overly attached to their own way of thinking, and reluctant to defer to a consensus decision that would work well for the whole team.

In personal relationships, two partners with very different stackings of survival instincts are at risk of misunderstanding one another and not feeling loved the way they need it most. For example, a one-on-one person might have a hard time understanding the need for solitude of a self-preserving partner, or the need of a social partner to spend a lot of time within their favorite community. They might believe that their partner don't love them if they need to spend so much time engaged in their own projects or with their tribes.

Understanding our drives gives us the ability to understand ourselves and others better, which in turn helps us harmonize our relationships, both personal and professional.

It also allows us to rebalance our instincts: by grounding ourselves in our middle/most healthy survival strategy, we can release our addiction to our favorite/compulsive drive. And if we can commit to developing our weakest instinct, we could unleash the power of adding a new way of interacting with the world in our developmental toolbox. It's quite extraordinary!

Understanding Yourself And Others With The Enneagram

The Enneagram is a map of nine interconnected personality types that has been described and taught as a method for self-understanding and self-development.

According to The Enneagram Institute, the Enneagram can be seen as a set of nine distinct personality types, with each number on the Enneagram denoting one type. Although it is common to find a little of yourself in all nine types, one of them is your basic personality type.

Each person emerges from childhood with one of the nine types dominating their personality, with inborn temperament and other pre-natal factors being the main determinants of our type. We are indeed born with a dominant type. Subsequently, this inborn orientation largely determines the ways in which we learn to adapt to our early childhood environment.

Contrary to other models of human personality, the Enneagram explains that we're much more than our personality type (who we think we are). The Enneagram does not put us in a box; it describes the box in which we find ourselves stuck and most importantly, it gives us a path to break free.

The contribution that authors Riso and Hudson made to this fantastic psycho-spiritual development model is their description of nine Levels of Development. As described by the Enneagram Institute, there is an internal structure within each personality type. That structure is the continuum of behaviors, attitudes, defenses, and motivations formed by the nine Levels of Development making up the personality type itself. The Levels account for differences between people of the same type as well as how people change both for better or worse. There are three unhealthy levels where serious mental illnesses develop, three average levels where most people operate, and three healthy levels of progressively higher levels of functioning, well-being and freedom.

Whereas the pattern of personality (the "Enneagram type") that we develop in early childhood is necessary for survival, it ends up metaphorically reducing our field of view from 360 degrees to 40 degrees (operating from one type rather than nine). Our personality pattern turns us into automatic pilots compulsively responding to what's going on inside and outside of ourselves in the same old patterned ways. Obviously such limited ways of functioning condemns us to running into issues, especially relationship issues because relationships don't flourish on automatic pilot.

Over time, working with the guidance of the Enneagram allows us to free ourselves from our patterns and manifest the deepest quality of our type. Additionally, developing the qualities of the eight other types gives us additional tools us to shift from automatic piloting to manual piloting and enjoy a greater range of movement to journey through life.

This results in the possibility of experiencing and responding to what happens in the moment with freedom, spaciousness, and authenticity. It means that we are more present and resourceful, that we understand ourselves and others with greater depth, that we can take good care of ourselves, and that we can build happy, healthy and fulfilling relationships, both in our private and professional lives.

The Foundation Of Mindfulness

Mindfulness consists in a conscious direction of our awareness on the present moment, while acknowledging the thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations that arise in the background without engaging in them.

Over the last few years, scientific studies have demonstrated the benefits of a regular mindfulness practice:

• Physiological: mindfulness strengthens our immune system and decreases the sensation of pain.
• Emotional: mindfulness reduces depression and anxiety, and increases wellbeing and contentment.
• Developmental: mindfulness increases our ability to be open to others and to new experiences.
• Relational: mindfulness improves our ability to have healthy relationships with others.
• Spiritual: mindfulness leads to the investigation of the nature of consciousness.

All of these benefits are possible because mindfulness practices positively alter the structure of the brain.

As reported in this Scientific American article, "after an eight-week course of mindfulness practice, the brain’s 'fight or flight' center, the amygdala, appears to shrink. This primal region of the brain, associated with fear and emotion, is involved in the initiation of the body’s response to stress. As the amygdala shrinks, the pre-frontal cortex – associated with higher order brain functions such as awareness, concentration and decision-making – becomes thicker. The 'functional connectivity' between these regions – i.e. how often they are activated together – also changes. The connection between the amygdala and the rest of the brain gets weaker, while the connections between areas associated with attention and concentration get stronger. (...) In other words, our more primal responses to stress seem to be superseded by more thoughtful ones."

Mindfulness practice is indeed now widely recognized as a great method to deal with stress and pain. Beside its grounding and calming effect, the most remarkable outcome of a regular practice is the progressive development of the ability to choose to respond rather than react when triggered by an internal or external event.

When our nervous system gets activated by physical pain, a difficult emotion, another person's comment or action, any kind of event really, our inner automatic pilot reacts instinctively, and this automatic reaction is based on years of strengthening the same old neural pathways established by our genetics, early life experiences and personality patterns.

When we develop our mindfulness through regular practice, we become able to notice the activation of our nervous system - eventually before it is even a formed thought - and we develop the ability to use the tiny gap of time that takes place between arousal and reaction to make a choice in how to purposefully and authentically respond to the stimulus we are experiencing.

This ability to choose how to respond to an internal or external stimulus is true freedom, and our response chosen by integrating all of what is happening in the moment is true authenticity.

Because it's this inner freedom and authenticity that leads to personal fulfillment and happy and healthy relationships, developing our mindfulness through regular practice is not a luxury; it's a necessity if we care about our wellbeing and our personal and professional relationships.

Welcome to Foundations!

Foundations Coaching & Training has made its mission to inspire organizations to invest in their people and their relationships. We offer custom group coaching and training to build trust, hone great communication skills and boost the personal and professional development of all members of the organization.

The main asset of any organization is indeed its people and the quality of their relationships.

Happy and healthy professional relationships depend on the following factors:

• Quality of development of each member of the organization
• Trust between members, especially between employee and manager/supervisor/leader
• Commitment to a common vision, mission and purpose
• Quality of communication between members of the organization
• Investment of the organization in the personal and professional development of its members

When the members of an organization trust one another, share a commitment to a common purpose and know at a deep level that their leaders have their back, they thrive.

Investing in people and their relationships is key to a happy, healthy and successful organization, whether it is a corporation, an academic workplace, a volunteer group, or a spiritual community.

Contact us to discuss how Foundations can support your organization!